Upload speed falling away

I've been on Zen for years. Never really had many issues until recently. Upload speed was stuck on 1mbit last weekend! Makes a lot of things awful.

I tried the test socket and that seemed to reset the line so it was back to 7 mbit upload but I have checked today and it's fallen back down to 2mbit. This is still a lot slower than it should be. It also reset the connection lunchtime the day after and I rarely have resets or notice any loss of connectivity. For most of the time I've had the Zen connection it's usually around 6-7mbit upload. The download also started tailing off when it was stuck on 1mbit. Roughly down to 24/25 mbit instead of the usual 35 odd.

Anyone else had the same issue? I use the supplied modem in modem mode as I have a separate asus router for all the wifi and such like.

Your best bet will be to talk to Zen.

Hi,

Are you talking about the same/similar issue in this thread ?

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/technical/t/474099...

Maybe I'm mistaken? If so, apologies

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

Hi,

Are you talking about the same/similar issue in this thread ?

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/technical/t/474099...

Maybe I'm mistaken? If so, apologies

Yes. I was asking for potential causes to rule as many things out as possible.

Someone in the tech section pointed me at the old line data stats and it does show reduced speed happening since July basically. It was completely consistent before and now the upload sync speed is falling away. Download remains full speed at 40mb.

Given how much rain we have had in the last 6 weeks I wouldn't be surprised if it was down to water ingress somewhere in the old copper lines.
Tthe main reason why I waited until I could get FTTP before I moved from old ADSL as I don't really need the extra potential speed of FTTP over FTTC as over the years I had several occasions when this was an issue..

I'm also wondering about water ingress as well. It's been fine again while it's been dry so just got to wait for more bad weather!

In reply to a post by serichards:

I'm also wondering about water ingress as well. It's been fine again while it's been dry so just got to wait for more bad weather!

When we had a FTTC line which appeared to be affected by wet weather, it was the download which took biggest hit.

It's back to dreadful again. It's been raining but not very much. The line stats in the portal is often behind so I can't see what time it went bad over night. It reset in the early hours on the 9th but was showing normal speed then but lunch time today seems to set it off into resetting and being worse.

Line stats showing the speed change at 18.25 last night. If that is GMT then that coincides when the phone line was being used as it was in use at 19.25 odd BST.

Took the front off the master socket and plugged the filter Zen supplied into the socket behind. Showing full speed again. Phone line does work with using the separate filter and having it plugged straight into the back socket rather than via the socket on the face plate.

Wonder how long it will stay full speed and will it reset as soon as the phone line is used?!

Edited by serichards (Sat 12-Aug-23 14:14:25)

Up and down like a wotsit.

Interestingly all the times are all over the place. The line stats seems to be GMT. Doing a test just now with the Zen portal and it shows an hour ahead (GMT+2 or BST+1) . But it is showing a possible voice fault!

As usual the web chat isn't available.

Spoke to tech support. Much more helpful person this time. They are sending me a new fritzbox to try. Line fault not showing when they test it and I'm still using the test socket (same with both filters tried) so there isn't much left to swap out.

Fingers crossed that will fix things and it will be back to normal upload.

Edited by serichards (Mon 14-Aug-23 14:06:13)

If its working better at the test socket you could try replacing your Master Socket.
I got a new NTE5 socket from eBay for around £10 when i moved to a new house with a knackered old plate.
I can not remember which version I got, I [s]think[/s] there is a
bt-master-socket guide on the TBB main site

Edited by RichTea23 (Mon 14-Aug-23 15:42:58)

In reply to a post by RichTea23:

If its working better at the test socket you could try replacing your Master Socket.
I got a new NTE5 socket from eBay for around £10 when i moved to a new house with a knackered old plate.
I can not remember which version I got, I [s]think[/s] there is a
bt-master-socket guide on the TBB main site

It's basically the same regardless. Reset it and it's 8mb upload for a bit then it falls off to sub 2 mb over either hours or a couple of days.

I did look at replacement sockets. If it's the filter inside then I was going to get another and just swap the faceplate

Spent the afternoon arguing with the Fritzbox new modem. Did the same thing expecting the same results and got different ones.

After having issues with it just not working properly when it was being a dumb entity it suddenly decided it was going to. I swear the settings are the same. I turned off the 'check internet settings' or similar so maybe that was getting it in a loop.

It's been a bit hiccupy to start.

BT faceplate top is off and I'm still using the middle socket with combined splitter/filter. It's definitely slower to re-establish a connection using the front plate rather than using the middle socket.

No rain forecast for ages so it might be a while before it goes on the blink again.

Working internet lasted a whole 10 minutes. Then it fell over.

Ordered a dumb as bricks Zyxel old fashioned modem to try.

Back on the technicolour. Interestingly Andrews and Arnold don't offer the Fritzbox and they have technicolours and this older style Zyxel too.

Spent some time googling and it seems the Fritzbox is complete junk, particularly on Zen.

The thing is, a Fritz!box is what Zen supply by default, so most people on Zen are going to be using one.

Therefore most people talking about a problem on their Zen Internet connection are as it happens going to be using one.

So if you google for Zen customers having an Internet connection problem and they are asked what router they are on, as it happen it is mostly going to be a Fritz!box.

If you were to somehow search for people not having a problem with their Zen Internet connection, they would also happen to mostly have a Fritz!box.

And if you consider who is more likely to change the default ISP router is more likely to be a person who knows what they want to do differently on their LAN.

So there is a shed load of selection bias built into that googling! That's just a function of probability though.
It does not necessarily tell you anything useful.

Edited by prlzx (Wed 16-Aug-23 19:56:53)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

The thing is, a Fritz!box is what Zen supply by default, so most people on Zen are going to be using one.

Therefore most people talking about a problem on their Zen Internet connection are as it happens going to be using one.

So if you google for Zen customers having an Internet connection problem and they are asked what router they are on, as it happen it is mostly going to be a Fritz!box.

If you were to somehow search for people not having a problem with their Zen Internet connection, they would also happen to mostly have a Fritz!box.

And if you consider who is more likely to change the default ISP router is more likely to be a person who knows what they want to do differently on their LAN.

So there is a shed load of selection bias built into that googling! That's just a function of probability though.
It does not necessarily tell you anything useful.

Could easily be true. When I joined Zen the technicolour was the free default option I think.

I'd be curious to hear from people with a fritzbox on Zen that are fine, particularly ones that have been moved to Zen's own backhaul and off BT's. GEA I think it's called. Zen moved me just before Christmas but I didn't really notice.

Technicolour has been good as gold until something changed in July and it's all been on the wonk since.

II've been using the default supplied Fritzbox on full fibre for almost 3 years now with no significant issues - obviosly that isn't using the ADSL modem fubctionality so I can't comment on how good that is.

I have had to disable the auto-channel selection on 2.4GHz wifi as it otherwise tends to select one that gets too much interference from the neighbours (There are at least 14 other wifi visible in my house).
Also after a recent firmware upgrade I disabled the auto-DNS fallback as the router would several times a day decide there were (probably non-existent) issues and tempoarily switch to Googles DNS rather than stick with Zens default.severs.

Just to throw more chaff into your conversation - I'm using a Fritz!Box not on a Zen connection and have been for the last 15+ years in the UK (not the same box obviously because I had such a positive experience with all the AVM hardware I used when living in Germany - having the DECT/VOIP rolled into the same box that is also a WireGuard VPN end point is all additional positives to me) only issue I've ever had with the wi-fi on it is reach - but that is the same with all of the other routers I've borrowed to test... it's almost like there's a specification that all of the wireless runs to...

Easily resolved by employing an old Fritz!Box (which must be close to a decade old now, but still getting updates) as a wireless repeater (cabled back to the mesh master)

Edited by hunnymonster (Thu 17-Aug-23 15:11:06)

I'm totally happy with the Fritz box. I get these speeds all the time:


The only annoyance I've had (easily resolved) was when they moved me to DV the new configuration they pushed out removed my existing Sipgate config.

Got the Fritzbox working. The wifi stopped working properly so the admin interface was inaccessible but the weird phone connect reset worked to reset it somehow.

Followed the same instructions as I had before in how to set it in bridge mode and this time they actually worked. No idea why the first run failed as I used the exact same page from some Belgian internet company and Zen themselves send out that same page as their instructions on how to do bridge mode. Belgian internet company instructions to reset with the analogue phone were the ones that worked as well.

Weather looks terrible so there will be good test conditions

Still falling away. Upload down to 5mb. Not very good. With that happening with 2 routers and 3 different filters ie master socket, test socket with 2 other filters and using the master socket double filtered it must surely be an issue with BT's equipment??

Good luck getting Zen to do anything about it!

In reply to a post by ukwiz:

Good luck getting Zen to do anything about it!

Tell me about it. Got some absolute rubbish about they can't do anything to help via email as I'm not emailing from the registered address. I am. They've helped via email before.

Clearly trying to avoid actually doing anything.

Edited by serichards (Thu 24-Aug-23 13:38:49)

Emailing zen is a total waste of time.

Getting any sense out of zen support is a total waste of time too

In reply to a post by ukwiz:

Emailing zen is a total waste of time.

Getting any sense out of zen support is a total waste of time too

Still on hold after 15 minutes. This is why I want to be using email as they don't answer the phone in a reasonable time either.

In reply to a post by serichards:

In reply to a post by ukwiz:

15 minutes

They are always unusually busy. Much like everyone tbh. 15 mins is nothing when calling them

In reply to a post by Rhynchelma:

In reply to a post by serichards:

In reply to a post by ukwiz:

15 minutes

They are always unusually busy. Much like everyone tbh. 15 mins is nothing when calling them

I waited 25 in the end. Not answered. Tried again later. 35 minutes waited. Still not answered. Not good enough.

Speed syncs are getting lower and often happening multiple times a day. The other night it was sub 1mb download as well. It's a joke. Line test was showing voice fault again.

Will wait until the end of the week to see if anything useful is offered eg actual raising a fault to BT or raising a fault with their own network team. Used the tech support form and moaned again about them not answering the phone and not having the web chat available.

It's last chance saloon.

Update: Nothing useful offered. More excuses not to do anything and clear inability to read beyond current service speed to see the history of terrible sync speeds.

Edited by serichards (Thu 14-Sep-23 17:28:28)

Interesting.

Been on A & A since Monday morning. Download speed is now nearly 50mbit! It was 36mbit with Zen. Upload is 8mbit and has stuck so far.

It shows that there is more overhead/congestion/contention with Zen as the sync speed was 40mb but only 36mb was available and often the upload was 6 or 7 mb at best when actual sync upload was nearer 8mb. With A & A you get all the speed of the line.

Still using the Zen fritzbox in bridge mode. Asus router doing the PPP so I assume only differences are ISP ones and also not using the normal phone line for any calls as it's all VOIP.

In reply to a post by serichards:

Interesting.

Been on A & A since Monday morning. Download speed is now nearly 50mbit! It was 36mbit with Zen. Upload is 8mbit and has stuck so far.

It shows that there is more overhead/congestion/contention with Zen as the sync speed was 40mb but only 36mb was available and often the upload was 6 or 7 mb at best when actual sync upload was nearer 8mb. With A & A you get all the speed of the line.

Still using the Zen fritzbox in bridge mode. Asus router doing the PPP so I assume only differences are ISP ones and also not using the normal phone line for any calls as it's all VOIP.

I don't see how it proves anything if you are now syncing faster than before and DLM may have reset.

It would only suggest a difference if you were syncing exactly the same and getting better performance.

In reply to a post by serichards:

Been on A & A since Monday morning. Download speed is now nearly 50mbit! It was 36mbit with Zen. Upload is 8mbit and has stuck so far.

Migrating ISP on the openreach FTTC/VDSL system will cause a DLM reset. You can't compare for a month.

Roughly a month has passed since the change to AA ISP.

55 mbit down and 8mbit up is the new speed. This is the faster product which is different to the 40 max one with Zen. Zen had said there wouldn't be much benefit in upgrading to their higher tier.

It's been stable at around 54/55mbit down and nearly 8 mbit up most of the time. Not seen any of the strange speed drop offs as yet.

Still the same speed. 2 months since switch.

55mbit down and 11 mbit up after nearly a year with AAisp. Improvement has stuck and has improved some more on top.